The large price differential between Western Canada Select crude oil (around $14.50/barrel) and West Texas Intermediate ($56/barrel) is the result of reduced pipeline access to Canadian export markets and an over reliance on sales into the United States.

These are difficult times. In Alberta, the tone deaf NDP government of Rachel Notley, which famously and for a short time appointed anti-oil Greenpeace activist Tzeporah Berman to an Oilsands Advisory Group, is at it again.

Now Premier Notley has appointed her former chief of staff, Brian Topp, an ex-federal NDP leadership candidate and party president, to a committee to work with the oil industry to reduce the price differential.

Topp, who spent time in Saskatchewan NDP circles in the 1990s, famously said in 2011 that Canada’s claim to selling “ethical” oil would be akin to “selling ethical landmines,” as he mocked oil, called the Keystone XL pipeline “madness” and referred to the “tarsands” as having “shocking” environmental consequences.

A political insider friend in Alberta tells of provincial polling that has the NDP leading in fewer than a dozen seats in advance of next May’s election. Small wonder.

*****

When politicians decide to make a portion of their pay income-tax free, they usually do it for one of two reasons: They either want to use the pay as an extra allowance to compensate them for expenses they might otherwise have to submit receipts for, or they may be concealing what they actually earn by publicizing the lower “tax free” number.

For someone to take home, say, an extra $1,000 after taxes is the equivalent, for the rest of us, of having to actually earn somewhere between $1,300 and $2,000 before we pay our taxes.

After the federal government eliminated certain tax-free compensation, Saskatoon and Regina city councillors found themselves short of money and now want to make it up by paying themselves more; altogether, in the case of Regina, $108,000 and in Saskatoon $122,000.

There are times when citizens take home less pay because governments — including city hall — impose new or higher taxes. We don’t generally get a raise at work to compensate for lost income.

Call me old fashioned, but whatever happened to the arms-length principle that politicians are not seen to directly benefit from their own decisions? It used to be that pay raises were made effective after the next election.

Not in Saskatchewan cities, evidently.

*****

With 100 million Jack Reacher novels in print — one sold every nine seconds — the 23rd Reacher book was released last week and it’s generally a good ice breaker, regardless of location or company, to ask a stranger if they are familiar with the books.

Published in 1997 by Lee Child, who had been “made redundant” a couple of years earlier by a British broadcaster, the revenge theme in the Reacher books, jokes Child, was a message to his former employer.

Two successful movies have been made, starring the miscast Tom Cruise, at 5-foot-7, playing the retired military policeman and justice dispenser Reacher, who is described as 6-foot-5, 250 pounds and having “hands the size of dinner plates” and a 50-inch chest.

In a recent interview, Lee Child acknowledged fans’ unhappiness with Cruise and offered an opportunity for readers to choose a star for future movies. We obliged his suggestion on my radio show and took dozens of listener nominations.

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